


Scrounging

by crowvo



Category: Left 4 Dead 2
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-07 19:30:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4275291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowvo/pseuds/crowvo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the little things that can help keep you sane when you're scrounging to survive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scrounging

Somehow, Nick had imagined a military safezone as being an endgame scenario. They’d get there, and if they weren’t just shot right away, they’d get to hunker down in some shitty tents for a few months while the military took care of the zombie apocalypse that was apparently attacking the whole goddamn continent.

On reflection, that was really stupid.

The military safezone held through the winter, even though supplies started running low. The military confiscated everyone’s weapons. Nick assumed it was due to safety concerns, although he soon overheard from a soldier that they were running so low on bullets that they were resorting to using whatever guns were lying around.

Everything was rationed to the point where even Coach looked thin. People were starving to death, the ones that’d already been in shitty condition to begin with. Nick had started giving Ellis a bit of his rations, just to make sure the little guy didn’t end up in a shallow grave.

Apparently the military had forgotten about hurricanes. First one of those that came through ripped the place up all to hell. Whole area got flooded, most of the survivors didn’t make it.

Through some sort of fucked up miracle, Nick found Rochelle. Coach and Ellis were nowhere to be found. They spent the better part of the day picking through corpses, trying to find either of their Southern companions.

They found them, right when the sun was setting. Ellis had some shrapnel buried in his left shoulder, which he was working on removing by himself. From the way that Ellis was carrying that arm, it was clear that he couldn’t move it at all. Kid looked like he’d been crying, too. Made sense, given that Coach was in several pieces in the water around him.

* * *

That’d been nearly four months ago, with no end to the zombies in sight and no place safe to stay put at. Not every safehouse was well stocked, either. Some of them were picked clean, which forced them to soldier on to the next safehouse–regardless of how exhausted they were.

Ellis never did get complete control of his left arm back. Nerves were shot to the point where he couldn’t hold anything in that hand anymore. He could at least move it, though, granting him enough mobility with it that he could pull himself up when needed.

Ro’ had charted out a plan for them. She figured that heading North might mean that the winter’d slow the zombies down enough. Hell, maybe they’d freeze to death considering that they were all still alive. She’d swapped out for a sweatshirt, bracing herself for chillier weather.

Ellis didn’t want to ditch his Bullshifter shirt, but a Hunter answered that for him; it was ripped all to shit, and none of them knew how to sew. Nick’s suit didn’t last long after that.

As time passed, they found themselves scrounging more and more. Water was eerily scarce. Not because people had stocked up. Fights with zombies were messy. They’d often have to pick through the rubble of destroyed supermarkets, checking each individual water bottle in a pack just to find one that wasn’t punctured by a bullet or slashed by an infected claw.

There wasn’t much time for relaxing, either. No place that they stopped in was safe; the zombies would come after them mere minutes after they’d start their hunt. It didn’t matter how many they killed–there were always more.

“Nick.”

Nick didn’t look up right away. He could tell from Ellis’s tone of voice that the hick was getting ready to talk about his buddy Keith.

“Did I ever tell you about this one time, when me an’ Keith were at church, and-”

“And the pastor forgot to wear pants? Yeah Ellis, you told me.”

Ellis fell silent for a moment, then eagerly picked up the story anyway. It was just something to cover the silence. At first, Nick had protested, claiming that the noise would attract zombies. After a few trips where they’d all been dead silent, that was proven false–the zombies must react to sight or smell, since they didn’t appear to give a shit how loud or quiet they were.

“Hey uh, Nick?” Ellis glanced up from the backpack he was scrounging through. He could see Nick’s shoulders moving as he undressed a mannequin; every piece of clothing that wasn’t tainted with blood or decay was useful to them.

When Nick didn’t answer, Ellis figured that he should just keep going. “Nick, what’s yer favorite color?”

It was such an odd question that Nick actually laughed. “Blue, Ellis.” He finished undressing the mannequin, then headed off to scrounge up some more clothing. There really wasn’t much they could use.

* * *

Over a month later, Ellis finally got the chance to spring his plan. 

They’d found an old ski lodge that was mostly intact, too far away from the already remote town for zombies to be an issue–yet, at least. There was a safehouse deep within the ski lodge, and safehouses meant zombies, so it wasn’t as though this was a permanent solution. Still, it was warm, it was cozy, and the safehouse even had a nice little fireplace in it.

The fireplace meant they could actually cook a meal, too, and Ellis got to impress both of the Northerners with his decent culinary skills. Decent before the apocalypse, of course–now he might as well have been a top chef in a fine dining restaurant. Nick even found a bottle of brandy, which they all nearly finished off in one sitting.

Ro’ took the first shift, although there really wasn’t a reason to sleep in shifts. Better safe than sorry, after all. Nick took the shift right after her, content to watch the fire and relax on the plush carpet.

But when Ellis came to relieve him, he acted odd. He was stammering and blushing, tugging at his faded, disgusting hat with a nervousness typically reserved for high school kids asking their date out to prom.

Which wasn’t far off.

Nick didn’t know what to make of it when Ellis knelt in front of him, but as soon as he saw a little jewelry box he shot up off the carpet in a swear-filled frenzy, loud enough that even Ro’ woke up.

“Jesus  _Christ_ , Ellis, what the hell are you doing? Are you fucking  _proposing_?”

Ellis stood up in a hurry, eyes wide and pouting–always pouting, kid had an issue with that. “Well I mean, shit man, we been goin’ out for a real long time-”

“It hasn’t even been a  _year_  yet, Ellis!” Nick kept his distance, freaked out that Ellis would even  _want_  to get married. It had to be some misfire in his dumb hick mind that somehow made him think it was the “natural” progression of a relationship.

“Nick, it, it ain’t like anythin’ about this is normal, or fine, or…or,  _shit_  man, I don’t know!” He stumbled over his words gracelessly, still awkwardly holding out the little gray box as if he expected to be able to keep going.

It was Rochelle’s tired voice that broke the tension; although it only did so by adding a thick layer of unease. “Nick, he saw Coach get killed. You might die tomorrow. I might die tomorrow. He might die tomorrow. No reason to wait when anything could go wrong.”

But Nick wasn’t having any of it. He went to the attached room and promptly settled into his sleeping bag. Rochelle patted Ellis on the back and joined Nick.

* * *

Ellis didn’t give up; every week he’d try a different strategy, hoping that Nick would change his mind. Every week, Nick turned him down. Ellis understood it; commitment was something that’d burned Nick in the past–that didn’t stop Ellis from hoping it’d somehow be different with him.

Eventually, Ellis started taking longer between attempts, each one getting weaker and weaker. They still were just as romantic as they’d been throughout the ordeal; kissing, hugging, holding hands–all that fun stuff that Ellis couldn’t get enough of. But he was worn down. Nick never budged an inch.

And then they were rescued.

* * *

It was funny for this to be the real deal. The few survivors left in the country had banded together to form several new cities, rebuilding with what was left. The only zombies left were the infected that’d mutated far beyond the rest–the Jockeys, Boomers, and all those other freaks. The rest had starved to death ages ago. Made things easier to deal with.

After a year, Ellis and Nick were able to safely buy an apartment, with Rochelle in the complex down the street.

“Well?” Nick was standing in their apartment, having brought the last bag of groceries in. He was staring at Ellis expectantly. “You gonna propose or what?”

Ellis practically tripped over himself to dig through his well-worn pack, finding the box near the bottom. He showed Nick the ring hopefully, a sapphire. It wasn’t a particularly nice ring, but it was what he’d found months ago.

“What changed your mind?” Ellis’s heart was still hammering, even though they were just sitting on the couch and watching the TV. He couldn’t help but stare at the ring on Nick’s finger, happy that he’d managed to guess the size right.

“Mind never changed, Ellis.” Nick tilted his head to glance at the mechanic, chuckling. “I just wanted us to have a home first.”


End file.
